Once again, when I went to the polling place, they marked my page in the big book of voters with a number and then marked the ballot they gave me with the same number. It would seem this defeats the secret ballot. What gives?
Are you sure it was a unique number identifying you? Or was it a number identifying the poll clerk who handed you the ballot paper and checked your name on the electoral roll?
Yes, my number was 297, KellyM’s was 296, and before putting the number on her ballot the clerk confirmed what number they were at. It seems to be that I was the 297th vote in that precinct that day. The number was both put on the ballot and on my page in the voter’s registry where they looked up my name.
Wow, paper ballots! Good for you.
Back in the good old days, (about 6 years ago) when we had punch card ballots, the number part was perforated from the rest. So you (not the polling workers!) would tear off the number. The number goes in one box, the ballot in another. So they can later check basics like #ballots vs # of numbers and then numbers against the rolls. You don’t have a tear-off thingie??
Infinitely better than punch a screen and who-knows if anything gets counted anywhere.